DMCA

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was enacted in 1998 in an attempt to curb the piracy of copyrighted works in the new digital age. The most important provision, commonly referred to as the anti-circumvention provision, makes it illegal to circumvent a technological measure that controls access to a copyrighted work or to distribute tools for others to do so. This means it is illegal to bypass DRM or other security measures. On its face this sounds very reasonable. However, this provision has had what were, hopefully, unintended consequences on fair use.